NATIONAL PHD IN HERITAGE SCIENCE

Thesis title: Bonum facere. Le opere di fondazione nell'Agro Pontino e i processi trasformativi di architetture e territori. Strategie per la comprensione e la valorizzazione di aspetti inesplorati

In the long process of construction and transformation of the Italian territory, the reclamation of wetlands represents a chapter in which technical, political and cultural dimensions intersect. The Agro Pontino, an emblematic case, is a particularly significant example of this complexity, as its current configuration is the result of multiple and layered interventions that have developed over the centuries. The integral reclamation of the twentieth century, although celebrated by fascist propaganda as a definitive conquest, is in fact part of a broader history, which began at least with the works of Pope Pius VI at the end of the eighteenth century and was marked by partial successes, failures and continuous rewritings of the territory. The 20th-century interventions provided the area with a complex infrastructure system – canals, hydraulic systems, roads, bridges, rural centres and services – which radically changed the environmental and settlement structure, converting vast wetlands into agricultural fields and experimenting with new forms of urbanisation consistent with the ideology and modernity of the time. However, subsequent studies have highlighted the incompleteness or failure of many of the regime's stated objectives, both in terms of the extent of the reclaimed land and in terms of social and economic results, while the environmental effects of the transformations are particularly significant today. Considering the Agro Pontino as a palimpsest allows us to recognise the overlap of material and immaterial traces, including the technical architecture of the reclamation, and to read the continuity of the processes of territorial rewriting. In this regard, the research proposes a transcalar and diachronic reading of significant portions of the territory, with the aim of restoring its complexity, identifying permanence and transformations, and offering helpful tools to guide future maintenance and redesign of hydraulic systems, with a view to protection and historical awareness.